


In the Morning I'm Bulletproof

by SongAboutExiles



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, First Last Times, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, queliot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-11-06 05:40:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11029788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongAboutExiles/pseuds/SongAboutExiles
Summary: A missing scene from before Eliot's wedding. Quentin does something reckless and impetuous and very, very Quentin.





	1. If You Want I Can Tell the Truth

Quentin splayed his hand on the warm swirl of the door's wood grain, his forehead coming to rest lightly against the smooth surface. Whitespire was quiet this late at night, all good little Fillorians tucked into their beds lest Watcherwomen or Beasts or god knows what came to snatch them away to certain doom. The person behind the door, though, was a different story altogether. He'd done nothing wrong, this person. He'd not strayed from the path or tempted the gods. Sure, he'd done his share of stupid things, but Quentin had just as many jackass moves under his own belt. And yet he was facing down a fate that Quentin wouldn't wish upon his worst enemy.

Eliot was not his worst enemy.

Despite costing him Alice, despite the pain and recriminations and the crushing, awful guilt, Eliot was not the worst thing to ever happen to him. Quentin wished he were. Wished he could just stand back and watch as his most beloved friend gave it all away. Not just his body - nothing so prosaic. No, they were talking Freedom here and Free Will and maybe even Human Rights and lots of other things that warranted capital letters.

Quentin bit his lip hard and knocked softly on the door, and the second his knuckles rapped the wood the capacity for rational thought fled his brain entirely. It took a long heartbeat for Eliot to answer, looking depressingly sober and impossibly lost. 

"Q." There was the faintest hint of a question, even as Eliot pivoted to let Quentin into the room. He was wearing nothing but a pair of loose drawstring pants and a headful of messy dark hair. 

The door shut behind Quentin with a soft noise that felt like his own doom. Why was he doing this to himself? To Eliot? What cruelty fueled him? "Your wedding is tomorrow morning," he said, useless and knowing it.

"Your powers of observation are, as always, staggering." Eliot ghosted his way to the wide window and leaned back against the cold glass, hips canting. Quentin couldn't stop himself from noticing the way it made Eliot's nipples harden. "No bachelor party, if that's what you were hoping for."

"Yeah, about that...why are you sober?" Quentin perched himself close, sitting on the arm of an overstuffed sofa and pointedly ignoring what he's sure is meant to be the marriage bed. 

"Believe it or not, some things are a little too big for booze to make bearable. Besides, I don't think I could stop if I started right now.." Drinking himself into death by alcohol poisoning might be a uniquely Eliot manner of suicide, but it was still suicide. 

"But you wouldn't do that. Tell me you won't do that." Quentin hated that his voice trembled, and hated even more that Eliot quirked a brow when he heard it. 

"Tell you that I won't kill myself? You know what, Quentin, no. I mean, I'm not going to slit my wrists in some overdramatic fashion or anything so banal, but I can't promise that I'll work too hard at staying alive." From anyone else, it would sound like purest self-pity, but from Eliot, it was a simple statement of fact - Margo called it his low-key death wish, and she wasn't wrong. Quentin was perversely glad she wasn't here. 

"Right. Then I'll spare you the bullshit pep talk, I guess." Quentin's nimble hands wasted their potential by playing absently with the fraying thread along the cuff of his shirt. 

"Why are you here, Q?" Eliot shifted away from the glass, fractionally closer to Quentin, eyes shuttered and flat. 

"I...to tell the truth?" He stilled his hands by clenching them on nothing.

"No, please, what I need right at this moment are lies." Pretty lies, maybe. Beautiful ones. 

"What if the truth is, um, stranger than fiction?" Quentin looked up at him through his lashes. Oh god, seriously, what had made him think he could do the mad thing he was here to do?

Eliot sighed elaborately and passed Quentin to pour his long body into the corner of the sofa. "Then I'd say you really have to tell me."

"I was afraid you'd say that. I...I've thought about that night..." There could really be no question regarding which night. In fact, maybe it should have its own set of capitals: That Night. 

"You do remember." Eliot cocked his head and studied Quentin in a way that said, in no uncertain terms, that he knew Quentin. In the Biblical sense. In the 'I know what your come tastes like' sense. In the 'you're beautiful when you kiss me' sense.

"I'm..." God, why was this so fucking hard? And when did he get hard? "I'm surprised you do." 

"Every inch of you." Eliot's voice was tinged with a bitten-off longing that reverberated inside Quentin's gut. "If it was going to be my only chance...well. You'd be amazed how fast I can sober myself up."

"The thing is...what if it wasn't your only chance?" That was possibly the worst come-on line ever, and Quentin cringed. 

"Q, are you actually trying to throw me a pity fuck?" Eliot's voice went flat. 

"No! No." Oh shit. "No." Quentin panicked. He wasn't proud of it later. "I just...it made me so sad that we'd never get to...and that there was so much stuff we didn't get to do, and..."

"Calm down there, cowboy." Eliot uncurled from his spot, a fond smile on his face that livened his dead eyes to something warmer, something approaching life. "You made your point." Quentin watched him slide across the sofa until their legs were touching. Eliot's long, long legs, making a perfect spot for him to crawl into. An invitation.

Quentin took it.

He levered himself up and across Eliot's lap, thighs snug around Eliot's hips. "Is this okay?" he whispered, as if Eliot were going to just evaporate, or shove him off, or say no.

"You really know how to twist the knife, Q," Eliot murmured back, slowly raising his hands to card through soft strands of hair. 

"Is this hurting you, or helping?" Quentin pressed his forehead to Eliot's, breathing his breath but still terrified of moving in for more.

"It doesn't matter." Eliot wasn't so shy. Between one breath and the next, their lips touched, and Eliot pressed the kiss, chaste at first. A brush of lips, another, and then Quentin twitched in his arms and opened his mouth. 

He didn't know if Eliot always kissed like this, with this all-consuming focus and determination, but part of him whispered that this was not in fact normal. That Eliot only kissed him this way. It was a wonderful thing to believe - so wonderful he didn't care if it was a lie or not. 

"I guess nothing matters right now, except this," Quentin whispered into Eliot's mouth, reaching down to tug his shirt up and off. He had no great physique, but then Eliot was running his hands up and down the knobbly line of his spine and he forgot to be embarrassed. 

"That's my boy. Live in the moment." Eliot stopped for a long moment to just look, and Quentin felt the weight of his gaze in every pore of his skin. 

"Are you just going to look at me?" Quentin ducked his head down, embarrassment coloring his chest all the way up to his ears.

"You mean 'look at you like I've always wanted to'?" Eliot brought his hand around to lift Quentin's chin, meeting his eyes. "That's not all I'm going to do. Not by a long shot. But this time has to last me, so cut me a break, okay?"

Quentin nodded and then found himself tilting his chin, rubbing his cheek against Eliot's fingers. When he saw Eliot take a long breath and murmur 'oh,' he opened his mouth and took two of Eliot's fingers in deep. They were salty and good and he suckled at them. God, he remembered - a big, hard cock nudging the back of his throat, those hands tangled in his hair, Eliot's back arching - and suddenly it just wasn't enough.


	2. This Life Takes a Toll on You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin and Eliot find the oldest magic of all.

It wasn't enough, and he was tired of the endless guilt and the unholy waiting. Quentin half-fell, half-tumbled, and half-slithered off Eliot's slippery lap to kneel between his thighs. It was awkward enough for three halves, easily. Eliot's mouth quirked.

"What?" Quentin had thought he'd done this quite well the last time, but who knows? Maybe he was terrible, just like Alice said. 

"All the grace of a baby deer on ice," Eliot murmured, leaning down and kissing him again. "And I wouldn't have you any other way, Q."

Quentin's grin was a little sloppy and very silly, but as soon as Eliot let him breathe again his hands were going determinedly to Eliot's drawstring. Those nimble fingers finally came in handy as he untied the stubborn knot and eased the pants down past Eliot's hips, freeing his hard cock. Damn. He had to have been fucked up to just go to town on that without a second thought. 

Of course, he wasn't exactly having second thoughts as he dove in, wrapping his mouth around the broad head and suckling hard, tongue flicking over the little slit and picking up every drop of precome Eliot gave him. 

"Holy Jesus FUCK, Q!" Quentin sure as hell didn't have TMJ. He felt Eliot's hand carding through his hair. "That feels so fucking good."

There could really be no doubt of it, with the way Eliot's cock twitched in his hand where he'd gripped it at the base. Encouraged, Quentin tried to relax his throat and go down on Eliot properly. Sucking cock was a messy affair, all spit and obscene little noises, and Quentin was hooked. There was an immediacy to Eliot's reaction that was so open and honest, as if this man who'd had his cock sucked innumerable times was experiencing some kind of nirvana, and Quentin was Jesus or Buddha or something.

When Eliot's cock hit the back of his throat, he gagged a little. Eliot gripped his hair just a little bit. "Shh, sweetheart...you're perfect. Just move."

The endearment struck home, and Quentin's heart clenched even as he bobbed up and down experimentally. Oh yes, this was definitely good. Better than he remembered, even, because Eliot was mewling. Actually...mewling. Maybe whimpering? What was the difference? The whole world was this, head bobbing up and down, Eliot's cock compressing his tongue, his throat stretching until he gagged again and had to come back up for some air. 

It didn't last long, that sweet gulp of air, because Eliot was bending his lanky body and capturing his mouth, tongue to tongue, and all the spit and precome made their lips slide together. "You are far, far too good with that," Eliot whispered against his lips. It was only then that Quentin realized exactly how hard he was, how tightly the need was curled deep in his belly, like a serpent squeezing out everything else as it swallowed him whole. "Tell me what you really want. What you came here for." 

"I wanna fuck," was all he could think to say for himself. Oh, and maybe to clarify it a little bit more, "I want you to fuck me."

Eliot stopped kissing him then, pressing his forehead to Quentin's in a gesture that was becoming too familiar, too comforting. "Yeah...yeah, baby, c'mere." He pulled at Eliot's shaky body until he was back in Eliot's lap, another forbidden comfort. His hair curtained their faces as Eliot kissed him again, and again, nimble fingers working at the fastenings of Quentin's pants as he got them open, shucked down. 

"You have to...I have to get these off." Eliot pivoted, splaying Quentin on the sofa gently as he worked off the stubborn clothes, letting his own pants fall in a puddle in the process. When they were both naked, Quentin shivered under the intensity of Eliot's gaze. It was like Eliot was trying to memorize him, every detail. And then Quentin did one of the bravest things he'd ever done.

He spread his legs. Nice and wide.

"You are so fucking beautiful, Q. You have no idea, either." In response, Quentin didn't even blush - he just reached out his hands for Eliot, pulled him close, and kissed him again. Their cocks slid across each other sticky and sweet and slick, and he bucked his hips up and gasped into Eliot's mouth. 

"Shh, baby, I've got you. Let me make this...let me make this perfect. Want it to be perfect." Maybe it was just because this was Eliot's finale, but Quentin didn't think so. Insofar as he was capable of thinking anything. 

"Just want you in me, El." Quentin figured it would hurt, figured it would be painful like pulling off a scab on a wound that had been festering for a long, long time. He was ready for it. 

"You'll have it, Q. I swear. Just let me show you..." Eliot moved back to crouch between his spread thighs, hoisting them up till Quentin was even more open, even more exposed. Before Quentin even had a moment to be embarrassed, that clever, acidic tongue was at his hole, licking a swath up and across it and sending lightning crackled through his nerves as they all woke up, all at once. 

"Oh GOD, El!" Quentin knew about this, of course, he'd watched porn for god's sake, but he'd never imagined it would feel this good, that Eliot would give him anything this innately intimate. 

It felt like Eliot was trying to crawl inside him, his tongue slipping inside with an obscene ease that left Quentin alternately tense with hunger and boneless with bliss. Seriously, who knew?

Eliot seemed to know just fine, as he used his thumbs to pull gently till Quentin was even more open, laid bare for that devastating tongue that was pressing inside him. Trust Eliot to be as good at this as he was everything else. Trust Eliot to know just how to take him apart. 

Just...trust Eliot.

The slow intrusion of a spit-slick finger came as less a surprise, more a revelation. Quentin had only experimented on this with himself a couple of times, and those had been fumbles that were not only unsatisfying but vaguely embarrassing. This time, though, as that long finger pushed inside him, he felt the stretch of it, the bliss of it, and when it reached implacably for his prostate Quentin nearly spent himself. "El!" 

Eliot slid away from his hole, and offered him a slow, gentle, deep bite to the flesh of his inner thigh instead. It didn't slow the burn at all, but rather made his hips buck up hard. "El, I'm gonna come if you keep this up!"

El appeared positively wrecked when he lifted his face to Quentin's again, his eyes a little glazed, his lips shiny with spit and swollen. It was the prettiest thing Quentin had ever seen. Keeping that finger inside, but backing off his sweet spot, Eliot moved up to cover Quentin's body with his own. "I...I don't have anything slick, and I can't take you like this." Just with spit and desperation. 

It took Quentin a long moment and two soothing kisses in which he sucked hard at Eliot's tongue before he remembered this didn't have to be a tragedy. No, no one's needs were going unmet tonight. That was the exact opposite of the point. "In my pocket. Stole it from the kitchen." 

Eliot managed a breathy laugh, and then that taunting finger disappeared, leaving Quentin squirmy and empty, while he rummaged around till he found a tiny vial of cooking oil. "You don't have to steal, you're a king," he reminded Quentin. "A brilliant king."

Somehow, Eliot managed to get the stopper out and his fingers coated without spilling any, even though Quentin saw how his hands were shaking. When Eliot returned, he wrapped one arm around Quentin's shoulders, cocooning him in close to his chest so he could kiss Quentin again, and again. Quentin melted, clutching languid and sweet to Eliot's back. He couldn't remember a time in his life when he felt so safe. So...treasured. 

When he felt Eliot's fingers inside him again, there were two, and the stretch was more palpable and yet he still didn't feel that flash of pain that he'd feared. Anticipated. Instead, there was a stretch that made his back arch up, and he found himself clenching and unclenching around them just to explore the way they filled him. 

"Oh god, you are going to feel like heaven around my cock," Eliot murmured against his lips, taking them again in a kiss. Two fingers became three, and Eliot only glanced off his prostate a few times. Quentin suspected that Eliot loved the way it made him cry out into his mouth, made his hips jut up and precome leak down the side of his dick. 

"El, Jesus, that feels so good." Maybe he should be aware of how open he sounded, how raw and somehow innocent, even after all they'd been through. But he couldn't care. He was Eliot's in this moment, and if he were honest with himself, he'd be Eliot's forever. "More? Am I ready?"

Those fingers spread inside him, and Quentin felt the most delicious stretch, body twisting in Eliot's arms. "Yeah, beautiful, I think you are." Eliot reached over the side for the vial of pilfered oil and slicked up his cock. 

It was the proverbial moment of truth, and Quentin had never been more ready for anything in his life. Except magic, maybe, and wasn't that all inextricably tied up with Eliot in his mind, too? Eliot was magic. No more so than when he pressed the broad, slick tip of his cock to Quentin's hole and rocked forward, breaching him and spreading him so, so open. 

This was as real as it got, as close as two people could get - no faking it, no prevarication, just the slippery glide of Eliot filling him up, inch by careful inch, until he felt impossibly, wondrously FULL. 

"El..." The feeling was almost too much. There was a stretch, but no pain, and Quentin found himself clamping down too hard around the cock inside him.

"Hey...Q...push down like you're trying to push me out. Trust me." Eliot shuddered on top of him, and Quentin was aware that all the clenching and wriggling he was doing was probably pushing Eliot too close to orgasm, right along with him. 

Meaningless noises came from his throat as he complied, as he just opened himself, flayed himself bare, made room for Eliot inside him. "Fuck, Q, just..like that." Just like that, and Eliot moved, thrusting his hips, finding a rhythm that gave Quentin a pleasure unlike anything he could've imagined, not in a thousand years. 

Eventually, he realized he could meet those thrusts, that he could let his eyes meet Eliot's and catch there. No hiding, no lying, nothing between them anymore. And yet there was something building, something huge and grand and sweet and doomed. 

He'd never seen Eliot vulnerable like this, bared like this. His hands slid down Eliot's sides and gripped at his hips, and then Eliot went and changed the game, angling ever so slightly so the head of his cock brushed that sweet spot with every downward thrust. 

Oh god, there it was, the oldest magic. The kind that was too visceral, too raw for everyday use. Unless maybe you loved someone, and were loved in return, with the same painful and perfect honesty. 

Eliot was gasping, his thrusts growing erratic, and watching the man come undone because of him drove Quentin right, abruptly, almost excruciatingly over the edge of his own orgasm. The clench, the spasms, the look in Quentin's eyes - whatever it was, Eliot couldn't withstand it anymore than he could. 

And then he felt Eliot filling him, the warmth a balm to the leftover rawness of the initial push inside that had Quentin endlessly, hopelessly addicted to fucking Eliot. The irony that this was the only time he would ever fuck Eliot was not lost on him, and he felt tears gather at the corners of his eyes and spill down his face. 

It shouldn't have felt so right, so goddamned erotic, when Quentin licked them away. "None of that...please...or I'll start and then where will we be?" Eliot's voice was hoarse, and Quentin knew how close they were to just falling off the precipice, and there were dragons in the depths below, just waiting to devour them. 

"Y...yeah." Quentin tucked his head under Eliot's chin, arms locking behind his back, keeping Eliot inside him like Eliot had even planned to go anywhere until biology forced him to. "I had no idea."

"You know what...neither did I." It was as close to a declaration of love as Eliot dared skirt, and he came pretty fucking close. Not a good move if he wanted Quentin to stop crying. 

Eventually, after an eternity suspended in denial, Eliot moved away, pulling Quentin with him to lie against his chest, cradled by long limbs. He snagged a white, soft blanket from the back of the sofa and draped it over them, and Quentin snuggled in. Surely Eliot would wake him when it was time to pull themselves apart, sticky and messy as newborn babes, and part forever. Something in him didn't want to sleep, but he was so very exhausted, and he felt so very warm and safe. 

**

At dawn, Eliot's designated manservant came in to wake him, to prepare all of the myriad rituals that surrounded getting married in fucking Fillory. What he found was his high king, with king Quentin atop him, swathed in a blanket and sound asleep. Eliot was wide awake, and he shook his head with a regal definitiveness that had the man backing out of the chambers, silent and most likely outraged. 

Let them be outraged. Let them be angry. Eliot wouldn't, couldn't, let go of Quentin just yet. For the thousandth time since he'd woken a couple of hours ago, he reminded himself of the stakes here. Of the lives in his hands. All he had to do was marry, and forswear this beautiful man forever. It should have been a small price to pay, if one was the hero of the story. 

Eliot strongly suspected that he was no hero. Just a rat trapped in a maze with his mate on the other side of an impossibly complex problem he just wasn't equipped or allowed to solve. 

His arms tightened, and Quentin stirred a little. He soothed his lover with a stroke down his back, with low, murmured nonsense, until he fell back asleep.

Just a little while longer, and he'd find the strength. Just a little while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be a two-chapter one-shot tragedy, but I'm seriously considering expanding it. Need to re-watch s2 again!


End file.
